Ever since the I first played a cycling deck way back in the old days, I wanted to make something that had my own special spin on it. I didn't want another spoke in my wheel, I wanted the full cycling experience, but I didn't want to WORK for it. That peddling crap is for LOSERS. I want my wins free and easy with a small touch of salt and a lot of hilarity using a deck that many never expect. Zur Cycling!

A NOTE ABOUT THIS DECK

This deck is all about patience and "going off" at the right time. Math and percentage is key for success, but even I can't be bothered with that side of things. YOU WONT LIKE THIS DECK if you enjoy combat and smacking people in the face with big creatures. If you like combo killing out of NOWHERE, this deck is for YOU.

DANGER, DANGER!

To head up the deck, we have the commander in chief of Zur the Enchanter. A commander so utterly vile and renown for "lol soft lock the table" that I have to politely tell the table "this isn't a soft lock Zur deck" just to ensure I don't get killed in the first few combats. Sure, that gets a little frustrating and old, but Zur the Enchanter is in here for good reason. Being able to fetch one of three kill conditions in the deck.

But first up, what is the OBJECTIVE of this deck? Free cycling of cards via Fluctuator and New Perspectives. You see, Fluctuator reduces cycling costs by two generic mana meaning that most of the cards in the deck become "discard this to draw a card" or "discard this to fetch <insert type> basic land". Sound gross yet? If not, you should strap in, because it's about to get a WHOLE lot worse.

HOW IT KILLS:

I don't have a problem where I have to include Psychic Corrosion in every deck, I swear! But I have to include it in every deck where I draw a lot of cards. With New Perspectives out, we can cycle a whopping 40 Cycling cards included in the deck (not including land cycling cards to thin the deck out), we should have enough fuel to mill our opponents out. Zur the Enchanter is a TUTOR for enchantments of CMC 3 or less as well, for even more thinning and to fetch the Psychic Corrosion. But that doesn't sound like solid math, right? 41 cycling cards at 2 cards per cycle is only 82 cards per opponent. Well than, that's why we also run a copy of Shadow of the Grave, because it allows us to not only get back everything we cycled that turn, but also allows us to jank out a little to hit our main kill card.

Look, the deck is "fair" but if you get this off, it's gross as hell. I'm not sorry to my opponents who didn't suspect a thing until they lost to a same turn Approach of the Second Sun. Once games go on long enough where you can pool a cool 14 mana float and then cycling to your hearts content, you're on a winner. I have managed to hard cast this on turn seven and win on eight, it can be done. On the other hand, when you have more mana than brains, you can fall back on Faith of the Devoted to finish things off in the late game. You just have to wait until you have the right amount of mana and cycling as this hits EACH opponent. No wasted time here, this little lovely enchantment is the hotness in the deck for closing out those long grindy games.

Speaking of GRINDING, we have Drake Haven to make an army of geese to swan dive down and peck your opponent's faces off. Or I guess to use as chump blockers if you get desperate. We also can kill using Vile Manifestation in a pinch as well with some good old Lightning Greaves, as the Manifestation can get pretty big on the thumpy thumpy stat thanks to the cards we already cycled away.

HIGH VOLTAGE

This deck list is far from optimised at this stage and we still need to tinker with it and add in even more cycling cards. But before we go breaking my heart, we have to find ways to get what we need, when we need it. So let's throw in some tutors, shall we? Whir of Invention is one of the coolest tutors we have seen in a while and although it's been out for a while, I will always refer back to it as one of the most undervalued cards in EDH. It fetches out Fluctuator so that we can start cycling asap, if that's already out, we can fetch something like Sol Ring for that sweet, sweet mana!

Demonic Tutor is a mainstay of any EDH deck running black. Two mana to fetch any card? I'm sold. Speaking of being sold, I'm not entirely sold on a late game tutor, but Beseech the Queen is still fairly cool as you will rarely cast it before turn five anyway. The fact that it needs lands in play to have a tutor effect isn't great, but it's so much cheaper than Vampiric Tutor. (Razaketh's Right) is one mana more than Diabolic Tutor, but it has cycling, so there is no way we are going to skip out on it. Dark Petition is also in here because it can tutor for any card and then Spell Mastery means you can likely play what you fetch.

WHEN WE TOUCH!

Things are getting out of hand, your opponent has a mass of stupid Zombie tokens but you have ZERO way to wipe them out in your hand. Suddenly, you see you have a massive amount of mana and an Abandoned Sarcophagus in your hand. You note that you cycled away your Decree of Pain earlier, what luck! Abandoned Sarcophagus is a life saver in so many different scenarios, allowing us to cast any nonland card with cycling from our graveyard. This means that if we do run into trouble, we can cycle cards to the graveyard and play them, netting a card drawn AND the spell to still cast from your graveyard.

THE PROS

This deck is cheap and a lot of fun to play for a budget option. Yes, it needs a tune up, but even right now I'm winning 4P commander pods. The deck is easy to understand and the choices in what to play are usually fairly easy.

THE CONS

The deck can be very slow to start and we should probably look to include some fetch lands to help thin the deck out. Trying to get Zur the Enchanter out on turn four isn't always an option, and though that doesn't exactly matter, some more aggressive decks will swarm and kill you pretty quickly. Zur the Enchanter is NOTORIOUS for disgusting decks, you will likely have to try and convinde your play group that this isn't a gross lock down deck. No Stasis in here!

That's it from me today, I hope you liked this deck tech and please let me know what Commander you want me to look at for next month!
-Cheshire